Car boot and farmers markets in Ballarat and surrounds are a great morning our with family and & friends.

You never know what you might find, from fresh fruits, nuts, vegies and home cooked goodies at farmers markets, to furniture, bikes, odds and ends at bargain prices at the car boot sales.

Most have been running for years, if not decades, and are a chance to support not just local producers,Artisans, home crafters & bakers, as well as larrkin wheeler dealer hobbyist second hand merchants, but also the charities and service clubs that run them in some cases.

The markets don’t generally have set dates each month- they work off particular weeks of the month in most cases.

There are also the occasional specialist or occasional market event that is organised, such as the inaugural colossal swap meet at the Mitchell park airport each year, which will offer up a veritable treasure trove of rare and unusual goods, and tasty fare.

Visit Ballarat is a great resource for finding excellent markets in Ballarat and surrounds that might be updated more frequently than this site, so be sure to check out their website

Question- How fast is iiNet cable broadband, delivered over the old neighborhood cable pay tv coaxial cable network in Ballarat, Mildura and Geelong?

Answer: You wouldn’t believe how damn fast and good this service is! We tested it out in Ballarat, and it definitely more than delivers on the marketing hype on TV and the billboard scattered around town! In fact, the “80-100Mbps” marketing claim is absolute RUBBISH. In reality, it’s up to 300% BETTER.

Now, that’s not something that can be said lightly, but the evidence on how good it is is quite compelling.

Not only that, but its CHEAP, especially for what you get. (they currently have a special on, for 12 the first months at $40/month with a free netphone, modem, and $70 installation)

We reviewed the service through conducting independent tests of our own, and iinet cable broadband in Ballarat delivers surprisingly, rocketfast speeds of up to 330 Mbit downloads and around 5ombit uploads.

Even at full price, at $80/month…. the quality of the service seems worth it. Why would you want to pay $60-$70 a month for woefully average, unstable and unreliable NBN, when for just a few dollars more, you can have the best?

iiNet Cable internet Ballarat speed test results in detail:

Test Setup: wired CAT-5 Ethernet connection over a 5m cable directly to a Technicolor Cable Gateway Pro Model EPC3940L, which is standard equipment supplied by iiNet. (Results on a wireless Connection will naturally be much poorer)

First test: Google internet speed test. (just type in “internet speed test” into your browser, and a button will appear in the search results that connects you to the Measurement Lab service

We did the speed test again, directly through the Mlab site a couple hours later, and the results were fairly comparable.

Again, insane internet speed, way better than the crippled, expensive and unreliable NBN could ever hope to deliver.

The only disturbing result form tessymy.net was that the test we conducted appeared to be a severe outlier for all iinet tests conducted by them to date.

That said, we are not comparing apples with apples here- most of the iinet tests on this site were probably done with NBN or ADSL plans, which would have no hope of competing with the sheer raw excellence that cable can deliver in our town.

It’s great to see that Ballarat has one amazing service that is far superior to what can be obtained in Melbourne!

I think that’s more than enough speed tests for one day now.

You get the idea. Those ratty old coaxial cables which hang from the power poles around downtown Ballarat are quite a surprising little gem, and we are lucky to have access to them.

Here in Ballarat, we can obtain internet speeds that most people in the Australia can only dream about, (100-350 mbps ) and its only $40 a month at the moment for limitless, unmetered internet.

The instruction manual was even useful because it was written in understandable English for once!

The mixer also goes by the name of the Lenoxx 100oW MMX150
It was a present for the lass, who dearly wanted to make up a very special cake.

When picking up the box from big W using the very convenient click & collect service, we were a little concerned that the box the mixer came in was made of old cardboard and duct tape… but inside, the normal retail box was revealed, with the packaging still sealed, suggestive that we had received a brand new item for our money, as had been promised.(phew!)

The machine inside the retail box was well packaged, with moulded styrofoam, and silky plastic baggies on all accessories, cords etc to prevent scratching, so it easily survived it’s probable role as the ball in the aussie post and woolworths distribution centre football match it probably went though on the way to its destination.

Visually and aesthetically, it’s a handsome machine, especially considering the bargain sub-$150 pricetag, and that we used one of ebay’s regular 20% off discount codes when using paypal.

Build quality is not half bad for the price, with thick cast alloy attachment accessories (pictured above), a stainless bowl of a decent gauge which is not flimsy, and a pretty solid and high quality feeling “business end” on the planetary mixing action (see image below), and thoughtful design additions like VERY VERY sensitive and sticky suction cup feet, which, to my amazement, somehow even managed to develop a death like grip on the lightly oiled chopping board I initially perched it on for inspection.

My only criticisms are fairly minor, in that the outer case of the machine itself and it’s controls aren’t of particularly heavy weight plastic-all the quality engineering and manufacturing budget for the machine clearly went into the essential working parts.

I’d say if it fell off the bench, or you were a bit rough with the controls there’s no doubt that it would end up cracked or broken- it’s not built for an abusive environment.

That said, most people look after their appliances, and it has those amazing sticky feet I mentioned earlier which would prevent any inadvertent kitchen kamikaze antics from this device- there’s no way it can “walk” and buck off the bench while unattended.

Notes on operation-

The control dial indicates four key speeds of operation- off, MIN, MID, and MAX, with about 10 apparent graduations in between, creating a theoretical 40 speed mixer.

In practice however, the mixer has about SIX main speeds, and the dial is digital, not analog in nature- What does this mean in english though? i.e. the position of the dial dictates a “target” speed for the machine- unlike on old sunbeam units like your grandma probably still uses, where moving the dial INSTANTLY feeds extra power immediately to the motor, or brakes the motor immediately, the digital controls on this machine are a fair bit more indirect- there are probably some fancy electronics in there which protects and STOPS the motor from being overloaded, or braking too sharply, causing damage to the motor and drivetrain- a very good thing!

What this ultimately means though is that this machine should last longer because the way the chef dials the controls abruptly simply cannot cause damage to the machine- it protects itself from abuse.

For example, smashing the dial up to MAX, from stationary, with the dough hook wodged in some very thick cake batter, will result in the machine Sloooowly working up to maximum speed at a rate that isn’t bad for the motor- the inbuilt intelligence in the unit also makes the mixer less prone to stalling when working hard, overspeed, or overheating.

Healthy choice mixer MMX150

Australian standard electrical compliance and manufacturer status.

Upon turning the machine over, a clearly legible, silver sticker on the base shows an RCM mark, which should be a clear indication that the machine has been professionally tested at an accredited test lab, and paperwork relating to the safety of the machine has been compiled- the mixer is clearly NOT a dodgy grey import, of questionable quality that is likely to kill you through electrocution, or burn your house down.

The RCM mark, and the fact that the machine was imported by a reputable electronics company, Lenoxx, which has been around for a long time gives the consumer a great deal of confidence that this is a quality and safe product, whose manufacturer warranty is likely to be honored if there is a problem.